Financial Services Committee

Press Releases

The legislation harmonizes and applies uniform standards to the nonadmitted insurance and reinsurance marketplace. It also requires uniform eligibility standards for non-admitted insurers and allows sophisticated commercial insurance purchasers more direct access to the surplus lines market.

Ranking Member Bachus, an original cosponsor of the bill, gave the following remarks:

"I want to express my support of H.R. 2571, the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2009, and urge my colleagues to vote for its passage under suspension of the rules today.

"While there are many important and complex regulatory reform issues pending before our committee, today we are seeking to advance a modest but long-overdue measure to streamline the current system for surplus lines insurance and for reinsurance.

"Surplus lines insurance, also known as ‘nonadmitted' insurance, is highly specialized property and casualty insurance for exceptional risks, such as hazardous materials or amusement parks.

"H.R. 2571 would adopt a ‘home state' approach to address inconsistencies in state regulation of the surplus lines insurance market, and the bill generally follows the model law on nonadmitted insurance adopted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

"This legislation also addresses reinsurance in a similar way by designating the home state of the insurer purchasing reinsurance as the primary regulator of credit for reinsurance and the home state of the reinsurer as the primary regulator for the reinsurer's solvency.

"As an original cosponsor of H.R. 2571, I want to commend the bill's primary sponsors, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Moore and Capital Markets Subcommittee Ranking Member Garrett.

They deserve credit for working together to move this bipartisan legislation through the House again this year and eventually we all hope into law.

"I also want to commend Congresswoman Brown-Waite, the original champion of this effort in the 109th Congress as well as a lead cosponsor in the 110th Congress and an original cosponsor again in this Congress. This will be the third time we are sending this important insurance reform proposal to the other body, and I hope our colleagues across the way will be able to see the value of enacting H.R. 2571 soon."